Illusion
by Aiedail01
Summary: Victoria doesn't really understand how she became who she is today. ...Sometimes when she's alone, when James and Laurent are gone and it's just her, she sorts through her human memories.' Victoria's life. Oneshot.


**I've been trying to focus on NEW ideas lately. And after seeing the Twilight movie, I fell in love with Victoria! I don't know if anyone caught this, but I thought it was funny in a morbid way how she had that "Kiss Me, I'm Irish!" shirt on that she stole from the guy on the boat who's blood they drank.**

**Soo I wrote a background for her. Hope you like it!**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight.**

Victoria doesn't really understand how she became who she is today.

She's cold, maybe a little vicious. She can barely bring herself to smile. The bright glint in her once green eyes is replaced with a ruby malice. Her voice isn't light and airy anymore, but a high-pitched hard hissing. She's no longer carefree.

Sometimes when she's alone, when James and Laurent are gone and it's just her, she sorts through her human memories. They're like the pages of a book left out in the rain- fuzzy and splotched, with unreadable parts. But something's still there, and it's hers to understand and piece together.

It's been over 200 years, and she's determined not to forget.

So she settles back, closes her eyes as if she's sleeping, and goes through her entire human life.

She was from Waterford, Ireland, somewhere near the Celtic Sea, and the sound of crashing waves still rings in her ears when she smells salt. She lived in a little house, though she can't quite remember what it looked like. There was gray, though, and round stones.

She had a big family. Three sisters, each with wavy hair and freckles, and they all looked exactly like their mother. She had three brothers, too, tall ones with muscles because they worked in the field. Her father was a farmer, sold potatoes and onions in the market.

Victoria was in the middle of the family. Cathleen was the oldest, followed by Nora and William. Then came Victoria, then Ryan, Brady, and Shannon.

But everyone said she was the prettiest. She was the only one with flaming red hair, hair that made her sisters jealous. She was willowy and calm and easily entertained, by butterflies and raindrops and sunny days. She floated about, collecting flower seeds and shells and dipping her pale feet in the water of the ocean.

She had her own flower garden in the back yard, where she planted the seeds she found. The garden is one of the clearest memories, Victoria notes, and she goes over it the most in her mind. It calms her, thinking of the flowers in it, the bright colors.

The bell-shaped pink foxglove, the round white dog rose. Gracefully tilting yarrow, next to golden asphodels. Purple, white, and pink orchids scattered between the others, along with amethyst violets and purple thistles.

She remembers days and days of watering that garden, tending to it. Pulling the weeds out, adding fertilizer from the sheep into the soil. Once a week she would go out and pick a selection of flowers, then place them in a vase on the windowsill in the kitchen.

She remembers that her family jokingly called her coinín, rabbit, because she could always dart away unnoticed. Her mother would remind her to wash the dishes, and Victoria would slip silently out the back door and reappear just in time for supper. The laundry would need to be hung on the line between the two crab apple trees, and Victoria would be conveniently missing.

That's what drew Oran towards her. Oran O'Donavan was a neighbor, the son of her father's friend. Papa had deemed him suitable for his third oldest daughter, with Cathleen and Nora already married. He'd invited Oran over for dinner one night.

All day, Victoria's mother flitted about. She made Victoria help her with the potato soup, adding the spices they saved for special occasions, then made her get an extra vase of flowers for the table. Victoria obliged, silently, but irritated.

She remembers having no plans whatsoever of getting married, and not really caring whether or not Oran liked her. She was fine with her life the way it is.

Victoria wonders if she really, truly, just liked living at home, or if she was just scared. Maybe she was worried about moving forward with her life. Maybe she didn't feel safe. Now, Victoria can't remember. It's a frustrating feeling, groping for a memory that won't surface.

But Victoria picks up her story where she can. When Oran arrived for supper, Victoria was no where to be found.

She'd danced out the door after bringing in the flowers, off to the ocean, to sit underneath the Scots Pine and toss stones into the waves.

She'd snuck back in that night under the cover of the stars, and was safe in her bed with Shannon when her mother came into to wake them up in the morning.

"Victoria! No one could find you last night!" her mother scolded. "You didn't get to meet Oran."

Victoria had simply shrugged. "I don't want to get married, Mama." She hadn't paid attention to her mother's reaction, just continued on with her chores.

Later that day, as Victoria patched a hole in Brady's trousers, there was a knock at the door. When she swung the door open, it was Oran, clutching a bouquet of lilies. "Victoria," he'd said in nearly a whisper, and held them out to her. She'd blinked, then slowly smiled, melting at the sight of his wavy brown hair and almost baby face. Maybe marriage wasn't such a bad idea.

Oran came over every day after that, Victoria leading him around the house, Shannon or Brady usually in tow. She showed him the water, the hills up and around the house, her favorite fields. They told stories of childhood, of plans for the future.

They snuck out together some nights, lying under the moon in a field of shamrocks. He kissed her softly there, and her lips tingled for hours after, keeping her from falling asleep.

Finally, he asked her to marry him. She was eighteen, he a year older. It's fuzzy around her wedding day, but she remembers pure joy, something she hasn't experienced since. There was happiness, and crying, and so much smiling.

There were almost five years between when she was married and when she was changed. She loved Oran, she remembers that clearly. Her love for him was deeper than anything she'd ever felt. They'd had a daughter, Eilís, Victoria's angel.

Their family was absolutely perfect, everything Victoria wanted. There are no specific memories here, just sounds and feelings. Family, love, her daughter's laughter.

But when she was 23, everything broke.

She woke up to the sound of her husband screaming, thrashing beside her. She remembers this clearly, though she wishes she could forget.

A dark shape hunched over him, blood running down his shoulder and staining their blanket red. Making it heavy against her. Sharp teeth glinted in the heavy light, red eyes and freezing white skin.

She remembered the _dearg-due,_ the legend of the beautiful woman who drinks the blood of males.

She froze. She didn't know what to do. She couldn't move.

"Victoria," Oran screamed at her. "Get _out._" The sound of it causes her physical pain, even now. When she thinks of the sound, she wants to scream.

But she ran from the room as the creature sucked the life from her husband. She snatched up her daughter and raced from the house, out across the field and toward the ocean.

She doesn't know how she was able to run for so long, or even where she went. But she felt like went for miles before the creature caught up with her.

But it did, and she screamed and screamed when her daughter was ripped from her arms. She might have passed out then. There are black spots, and flashes, and confusion, and _pain_, and it's all unclear.

But she remembers the sting of the bite, across the back of her neck, the searing burn of the venom as her heart pumped it through her veins. Blood was drained from her body, making her weak. But somehow she got away. Maybe the creature stopped. Maybe he gave up. Maybe she was strong enough to run into the forest, she doesn't know.

She always wonders who bit her, who changed her life. She has the haunting suspicion that it was James, but she's too scared to ask him. She doesn't want to make him upset, she doesn't want him to lash out at her. Sometimes she thinks she's content not knowing, but other days it gnaws at her until she can't take it.

But writhing on the ground, screaming for it to stop- all of that is a clear memory.

And when the pain stopped, it was James' face above hers. "Hi, there, beautiful," he said in a voice that made her tremble. It was patronizing and mean, but somehow sweet at the same time. It reassured her.

The more time she spent with James, the more she acted like him. She adopted the way he viewed the world, as meaningless and empty. The sarcasm. The coldness, the anger, the viciousness. It all became a part of her.

It's the opposite of how she was, but she didn't notice the transition as it happened.

She became dependent on him. Everything she did needed to be validated by James' approval. She wishes she can be with him all the time, wishes he could confirm, that _yes,_ this is how she should be living.

And maybe this feeling is love. She would like to think that. She wants desperately to feel the same thing that she felt for Oran, but that feeling is so distant in her memory she can't even make a comparison.

Victoria pretends that it is.

But she doesn't _know _anything else. James is all she has, and she can't lose him.

She refuses.

**Coinín**** means rabbit in Gaelic.**

**Hope everyone liked that!! I really like writing about Victoria... I loved inventing her life. I've got a series of drabbles about her and James coming up, so be on the lookout for that!!**

Review, please!


End file.
